4 Corners Broadband: You Only Live Twice

April 15, 2007

by Onder Skall

I’m just starting to feel my way around the Gaming and Learning In Second Life group, and I get the opportunity to meet with them today in-world which is very exciting. They’ve given me some great tips, but this was just beyond. Check out these videos at You Only Live Twice.

This was awesome. I mean, a lot of it is for newbs only, but after the first five or ten minutes becomes quite brilliant. There’s a general overview package about Second Life (including an interview with Anche Chung), but it then gets into economic analysis and a real critique of what we’re looking at. One little bit of serendipidy here is that they, inadvertently, echo what I’ve said with “Onder’s Big Three” about what makes Second Life unique.

A little further down the page and you’ll see three mugshots. Click on them and you can get some straight-up interviews with three people who really like public attention… and are knowledgeable about something or other I guess.

While the first five minutes or so of the Philip Rosedale interview were very much “for dummies”, and you immediately get where the hippie references in the Herald have been coming from, we get some real numbers out of him here about population and actual content about taxation issues. There are some funny comments at the end about how the law is probably not going to affect anything in SL… so obviously this interview doesn’t mention ageplay or gambling.

Prof Ted Castronova talks numbers and economics… and is very… stimulating… so like… call the guys and get some brew and get ready to jump off the couch screaming “yeah dawg” and high-fiving till your hand falls off cuz.. this stuff is… wow. *blink*blink* If you’re serious about business in Second Life, this is probably a good interview for you. Oh, and he says the opposite of what Philip said about taxes.

Clay Shirky, always positive, upbeat, cheer-leading and optimistic… and HUMBLE, my GOD! Clay, don’t be so down on yourself! Summary: it’s all hype, barely anybody there, nothing new, and the amount of sex in Second Life is insignificant. Hmm. You’re right Clay. Closing the blog forever and uninstalling now.

I’ll admit, while I do think Clay’s perspective is more cynical than realistic, it’s nice to hear somebody taking the piss out of the PR. It’s why we love ya Clay!

[EDIT: forgot to add – they also feature the odd perspective that if you were to attempt to cash out anything more than US$ 20 you’d ruin the economy… even though they ALSO feature people claiming to make a very good living in RL from SL business… it’s an odd denial of reality by the experts that’s always stuck in my craw.]